


The Mall

by Bolt_DMC



Category: Bolt (2008)
Genre: Abandonment, Humor, Movie Reference, Music, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Sad, Shopping Malls, Toilet humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-09-28 12:22:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20425901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bolt_DMC/pseuds/Bolt_DMC
Summary: Mittens has just begun to trust her new owners when the unthinkable happens. Will she handle her unfortunate new situation well? Will Penny, Bolt, and company be able to bring the cat back home and instill a lasting feel of trust? And why is Bolt talking funny all of a sudden? Primary cultural references include the Intermezzo from Johannes Brahms’s Third Symphony, the film "E.T.," and loads of pop songs, most prominently "Bridge over Troubled Water," by Simon and Garfunkel. Oh, and elevator music. Lots and lots of it.





	The Mall

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: February 2009.
> 
> For Matt R.

1.

"Seriously, what am I doing here? It's not like they really needed to drag me along with them or anything." Mittens lay in the car's back seat and shook her head in confusion. She was headed off to the mall on a jaunt with Penny and her mom to pick up a pair of slippers for the girl and a sweater for the older woman. It was February, warmer than usual in this part of the country, though there was still a modest layer of snow cover.

Penny had decided to bring the cat along, hoping she would become more accustomed to her new human housemates. Assimilation into the family unit for Mittens had been progressing slowly between typical feline caution and skittishness stemming from a bad experience with her first owners. To be fair, the cat had been making attempts to get past her trust issues lately, but it hadn’t been easy. "I want Mittens to feel okay about you and me," the girl had told her mom. "The best way for her to get used to us is to keep continual contact without being too hands-on about it, don'tcha think?" 

When they arrived, Penny’s mom said, "Honey, make sure you leave the back window open about half way. It's not too cold out, and I don't want the car to get too stuffy. Mittens will be fine." The cat dozed off after the two women left, but suddenly started awake about half an hour later to the sound of frantic buzzing. It was just warm enough for the local insect population to think it could get an early start on the new year, and Mittens found herself sharing the car with a pair of unwelcome visitors. Two large hornets had flown into the vehicle and were bumbling around trying to figure out how best to leave.

Mittens shrieked in panic and jumped out the window. She had run afoul of such creatures once before in the Brooklyn housing project where she first lived, suffering a painful sting on her tail -- and the cat was loath to repeat the experience. The pesky critters also saw the window opening immediately after and sped across the parking lot upon exiting, for some reason laboring under the mistaken impression that Mittens constituted a threat. It wasn't easy, but the cat eventually escaped the droning pests. Standing near a side entrance to the mall, the hapless feline turned just in time to see Penny and her mom in the distance enter the car and drive off.

"No -- no no no -- oh please, please, no!" wailed Mittens in dismay. "Not again! For the love of dog, not again!"

2.

Mittens lay in shock alongside a bike rack near the mall’s side entrance for some time, trying to sort things out. Her heart slowly capsized into a lake of unpleasant emotions. She felt discouraged at being abandoned yet again. Frustrated that her recently adoptive humans had driven off without making sure she was in the car. Unhappy that the two women hadn't turned back by now to try and find her. Mortified that she had begun to let her guard down and trust her new owners, apparently to no avail. Angry that she had had such awful luck in her life so far.

The rapidly falling temperatures, returning to a more seasonable chill, finally shook the cat out of her doldrums. She briefly considered walking home, but thought better of it given the significant distance involved as well as the fact that much of the trip would require traveling along busy roads without sidewalks. Besides, she felt nervous trying to undertake a journey like this alone. Had her intrepid friend Bolt been by her side, she could have confidently ventured most anywhere for as long as necessary. Without him, she was the textbook definition of a "fraidy cat."

"Well," she thought resignedly. "Might as well just head inside. I suppose things could be worse -- at least I'm in a place that's going to be warm and relatively clean. Hopefully won't get fleas or worms like I did in Manhattan. And there'll probably be some grub I can scrounge up from the trash. Mittens, old girl, you’ve gotten by under crummier circumstances than this. Chin up -- there'll be plenty of time to feel sorry for yourself later on."

3.

The mall where the cat found herself stranded was a large and typical example of its type, anchored by big box stores T.J. Snaxx, Gloomingdale’s, and J.C. Funny’s surrounding numerous small specialty shops, a boatload of tiny kiosk vendors, and a big food court. What Mittens first noticed, however, was the incessant, enveloping murmur of drab piped-in tunes -- and for someone who loved music as much as she did, this was the worst of tortures. Fine pop songs such as "I'm Lost" by X, "Isolation" by Joy Division, "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan, "Help" by the Beatles, and "You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling" by the Righteous Brothers floated along in assembly-line fashion, sapped of every drop of vigor like a ghastly parade of vampire victims.

"Oy -- I’ve really gotta find a refuge from this horrible stuff," thought Mittens as she slunk into a nearby Spender’s Gifts, perhaps best described as a novelty/head shop for suburban teens and pre-teens. Here at least, there was actual pop music being played. The cat broke into a wry grin upon hearing the Cream cover of the Albert King song "Born under a Bad Sign" belch forth from the store's speakers. "Heh -- ‘If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all’. Couldn't have put it better myself," she thought.

Three giggling 16-year-old girls flipped through posters, black-light friendly and not. A pair of six-year-olds with their mother in tow stood transfixed before a display of oozing, brightly colored lava lamps. A clutch of 12-year-old boys snickered at the display case containing gag gifts like chattering teeth, ersatz vomit, hot pepper gum, and rubber chickens.

"Cool!" said one. "I think I’ve got enough money to buy that fake poop over there. Can't wait till my sister sees that in her bed!"

Mittens smirked. "Sheesh, kid, save your money. Give me a minute and I'll be able to work up the real thing for you, free of charge. Then you can pick up that whoopee cushion to go with it. Makes for a good gag twofer, am I right?" The boys of course couldn't read her thoughts and decided to spring for the plastic dung anyway.

"Hey! What're you doing in here?" shouted the store manager when he spied the cat. "No animals allowed! Scat! Go on, get out right now!" He was a pimply-faced 19-year-old clearly determined to make a name for himself in the world of local mall retail, for what little that was worth. Mittens scrambled away from the angry man, tracing a serpentine path through T-shirt racks and backpack displays, managing to knock over shelves holding incense, coffee mugs, and shot glasses in her haste. She quickly reached the mall corridor, frantically zigzagging between shoppers and window peepers, hoping the store manager had given up the chase.

"Hide! I gotta find some place to hide!" she panted, finally dashing onto a kiosk filled with stuffed animals. Taking a cue from the movie "E.T.," the cat snuggled among the plushies and sat dead still, hoping to blend in convincingly.

Her ruse worked surprisingly well -- too well, as it turned out. A mother and her seven-year-old daughter excitedly walked up to the tiny booth about 15 minutes later, hoping to buy something.

"I want that one!" said the little girl, pointing exuberantly at Mittens.

Her mother wasn't so sure. "You want the kitty over there? Oh, I don't know, Deena. That one looks kinda scruffy, like it was left out in the rain or something. Might be a factory irregular. Look at the chomp out of its ear."

Mittens frowned in irritation. "Geez, lady -- you should talk. Your makeup is hideous. And when was the last time you washed your hair? Clean up your own yard, pigpen!" she thought.

The determined Deena insisted on having her way, though. She, her mom, and the kiosk vendor all got quite a surprise when the cat jumped from the display and frantically scooted off in the direction of the food court.

"Huh," said the salesman to his perplexed customers. "I didn't think that was something we sold. Turned out I was right. Soooo, maybe I can interest you in one of these fuzzy snow leopard stuffies instead?"

Mittens didn't stop running until after she had cleared the food court area. No one was chasing her, fortunately, but she still wanted to find a respite from the tedious canned melodies. "Let's see what's down this way," she thought, heading into a corridor leading off to the left. Just near the entrance to Bored and Failer, another department store chain, was a large kid's play area, complete with coin-operated horse and car kiddie rides, giant slides, a ball pit, a bouncy castle, and best of all, a carousel that jangled loud enough to drown out the pervasive musical wallpaper. Carnival ride tunes weren't her first choice, of course, but as far as she was concerned, anything else was an improvement. Besides, she found she enjoyed seeing the children play, their energetic joy helping her feel less despondent.

The cat watched the youngsters frolic for about an hour or so until she felt it was time to find a place to snooze for a while. "My species is supposedly nocturnal, right? Maybe it's time to let nature happen naturally." She had seen a Frodell’s Sporting Goods shop near the side entrance and decided to explore there. It turned out to be a naptime oasis for Mittens, given the number of empty pitched tents in the far corner of the store. She slipped unnoticed into a small pup tent and curled up in hopes of some tranquil shuteye.

4.

Penny and her mom pulled up to the farmhouse and got out of the car. The girl looked in the back seat and called for the cat.

"Mom," she said anxiously. "I don't see Mittens anywhere."

The older woman patted her daughter on the shoulder reassuringly. "Oh, don't worry. The times I've taken her in the car, she often goes hiding under the front seat to snooze. Let's just leave the back window halfway open, and she'll come in the doggy door when she wakes up."

"Well, okay Mom," said Penny doubtfully. Something didn't seem right about all this, though. She was fully convinced of it when she awoke the next morning with only Bolt and Rhino dozing away on her bed. "I really should’ve checked the car last night before I turned in," said Penny nervously as she dashed outside in her robe and slippers. Sure enough, no sleeping cat was to be found under the car's front seat.

"I'm sorry, honey," her mom said. "I really thought Mittens was just hiding. Don't worry, we'll head to the mall when it opens and look for her."

"Bolt and Rhino are coming, too," the girl insisted. "They can help us search. We’ve gotta get her back. We’ve just gotta!"

5.

Under normal circumstances, Bolt would have been the ideal leader for such a party. Given that he had a cold, which left his nose plugged up and runny, he wasn't actually going to be of much assistance. The determined pooch had no intention of staying home, though, insisting that he do everything he could to help.

"Bolt, Bolt, Bolt," said Rhino in frustration. "Having your sniffer on the blink makes you about as useful as a blind man at an art judging contest on this little expedition."

The dog nodded. "I doe, I doe. By sense of sight is about fordt best od by list of obtions. Bud I wadda help! I… ahh-ahh-ahh-CHOO!... I wadda help! I’b dot sdaying hobe doig dothig while Bittens is gode bissig!"

The hamster held his paws out in an attempt to calm the exasperated shepherd. "Easy does it there, Mr. Excitable! You're getting snot all over the floor. Not much fun to roll through a river of that stuff in my plastic ball, if you get my drift."

Bolt and Rhino earnestly searched the various department stores hoping to catch a glimpse of their missing friend, but to no avail.

"Dis is horrible! I… I… ahh-ahh-ahh-CHOO!... I cad’t sbell a thig!" groused the pooch.

"Maybe next time you'll think twice about swimming in the neighbor's duck pond when it's 35 degrees out," the little rodent scolded. "It's like when people go outside with wet hair after they take a shower. Not smart."

The dog shook his head. "Well, dature is a hard thig to igdore. Chasig ducks -- I just cad’t help byself sobetibes."

Rhino giggled. "Boy, don't you sound hilarious! Kinda like a bizarro world version of Elmer Fudd or something."

"Very fuddy! Veeeery fuddy!" the little shepherd said with a peevish sneer. "Dod’t bake fud of be, or I’ll… I’ll… ahh-ahh-ahh-CHOO!... I’ll sdeeze all over you! That’ll show you!"

"Lotsa luck with that, pal," chuckled the hamster. "I've never been happier to be rolling around in a plastic ball than I am right now."

"Yeah, well, see how buch sibathy you get frob be dext tibe you’re sick. Dot buch, that’s for sure," Bolt grumbled.

Their best efforts went for naught, as neither human nor hamster nor dog could locate the missing feline. The little entourage would have to try again tomorrow. Penny went to Office Despot to run off copies of a missing cat flyer that promised a reward for Mittens’s safe return. True to form for such things, the photo was a blurry, black-and-white one taken in bad lighting from a worse angle. Even so, the subject of the picture on the flyer was pretty obviously a Chippendale chair with what was almost certainly a tuxedo cat curled up on it.

6.

Despite being extremely tired, Mittens slept restlessly in the floor-model pup tent, her slumber plagued by nightmares of being chased by monsters, being deserted in abandoned buildings, and getting lost in mazes. She eventually awoke for good early in the evening, well after Penny and company had left the mall.

"Hmph," she thought. "Still haven't figured out I'm missing, eh? No surprise there, I guess." The cat stared forlornly at the canvas tent floor and sighed. While not the morose puddle of devastation she had initially become when dumped by her first owners in Manhattan, Mittens still felt plenty glum and somber. She had considered herself a loner after that particular experience, but now realized the description simply didn’t fit. Being a wisecracking misanthrope only went so far -- she truly did want and need a kindly owner, a close friend or two who had her back, maybe even a caring sweetheart if it could be arranged. A healthy dose of "me time" was one thing, but this was something different.

"Living a hardscrabble life alone is for the young, reckless, and stupid," she thought. "I’m getting too darned old for such nonsense. Enough already."

Mittens wandered out into the mall corridor, where she was immediately assailed by a fresh dose of elevator music. The tunes staggered forth like lifeless zombies in a lugubrious conga line. "If You're Gone" by The Byrds, "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" by The Beatles, "Solitary Man" by Neil Diamond, "When Will I Be Loved" by the Everly Brothers, "Where Did Our Love Go" by The Supremes -- the lumbering parade was ceaseless.

A sudden growl from the cat’s stomach reminded her that she hadn't eaten in a while. "Ugh!" she thought. "Maybe a little old-fashioned hunting will take my mind off this horrible music. Lucky for me, pretzel dogs don't put up much of a fight -- shouldn't need any claws to snag them." Mittens headed to the food court, where she was able to find a few discarded scraps of the aforementioned junk food, as well as a couple stray french fries and several muffin crumbles on the dining area floor. "Chow’s really not much better here than when I was living in those Manhattan alleys, looks like. At least I'm not fighting off pigeons and dogs and rats for a mouthful. Guess it could be worse."

Her foraging abruptly ended when Mittens tried to corral a wayward croissant chunk. "Hey, cat -- what’re you doin’?" scolded the pimply-faced manager of Spender’s Gifts, who happened to be on a coffee break and sitting above the tasty morsel. "Get outta here, kitty! You shouldn't be at the food court! It's unsanitary!"

Mittens zoomed off to find a place that had neither cringe-worthy soundtracks nor self-righteous food court diners. The nearby Moronica’s Secret seemed like an ideal refuge, so she noiselessly slipped in and looked around. The cat shook her head at the skimpy undergarments and lingerie for sale. "Not much left to the imagination with these, looks like," she chuckled. "Might as well just go cat style and do without. Besides, I don't think these things stay on too long anyway. Kind of a waste of money, I'd say." When she saw a particularly large woman decide to try on a particularly small thong over her clothes in the aisle, Mittens took this as a sign that she really should be heading elsewhere.

"Darned, stinkin’ furball!" grumbled the pimply-faced store manager as he tossed his empty coffee cup into the trash. "Animals don't belong at the mall. Especially not mangy strays like that." Just before he entered his store, though, he saw one of the posters Penny had put up.

"Ohhhh!" he said conspiratorially. "She's a lost cat, eh? And there's a reward for her return, too. Well, how about that? I've already bumped into her twice -- third time should be the charm. Maybe the jackpot, too."

7.

Penny, her mom, and the pair of remaining pets returned two more times to the mall without finding the wayward feline. It didn't help that Mittens slept most of the day when the little search party chose to embark on their quest.

This all changed on the morning an avid hiker decided it was time to buy a replacement pup tent at Frodell’s for his outdoor treks. He thought it would be a good idea to save money by purchasing the floor model, and both he and the salesman were surprised to see the startled cat leap from the tent and scurry off to the store exit.

"Er, no," grinned the salesman sheepishly. "The kitty’s not considered standard equipment. You'll have to go to the pet store for one of those. It's just a couple doors down on your left."

Upon entering the mall corridor, Mittens once again encountered a fog of tunes with all the vitality thrashed out of them. "Tracks of My Tears" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, "Raining in My Heart" by Buddy Holly, "Crying" by Roy Orbison, "As Tears Go By" by the Rolling Stones, and "Lonely Teardrops" by Jackie Wilson oozed one into the next like a multicolored plateful of runny baby food.

"Oy -- give it up already!" groaned the cat. And then, the droning speakers managed to discover a new low. Mittens recognized the main melody from the Intermezzo movement of Johannes Brahms’s Third Symphony, but it had undergone a blasphemous transformation -- shoved out of its normal waltz-like meter into 4/4 time and backed by, of all ridiculous things, a rumba beat.

The cat blinked incredulously. "Oh, this is wrong -- wrong on so many levels," she thought. "That's absolutely the last straw. I can't stand any more of this."

Her outrage was suddenly interrupted by the pimply-faced store manager, the other bane of Mittens’s mall existence, creeping up on her right. "C’mere. Nice kitty. Niiiiice kitty. Come to papa -- there's a reward just waitin’ to be claimed for your safe return. And I intend to collect… "

Mittens flattened her ears, hissed, and backpedaled quickly away from the man, hoping to find an escape route, when she collided tail-first with something furry. Whatever it was yelped loudly and then growled. It was Bolt, but he wasn't snarling at the cat -- rather at the store manager trying to catch her instead. The pooch quickly pushed himself between the two adversaries, turned towards the man, and barked furiously.

"Oudt! Oudt!" he woofed. "Leave by pal alode, or I’ll bide you id da leg! Oudt! Oudt, I say!" The pimply-faced manager knew better than to press the issue with the angry little shepherd and hastily scuttled back to his store.

The excited dog spun around to face his newly-rescued friend. "Bittens! Bittens!" he shouted joyfully. "I… I… ahh-ahh-ahh-CHOO!... I bissed you, Bittens! I bissed you!"

"Actually, you didn’t," laughed the cat while cleaning doggy sneeze from her face. "But I’m happy you’re here just the same."

"I’b so glad I… glad I… ahh-ahh-ahh-CHOO!... glad I foud you! Thang dog you’re here! We were so… so… ahh-ahh-ahh-CHOO!... so worried aboud you!"

"Sheesh!" though Mittens. "When did the weather forecast change from partly cloudy to scattered showers? Somebody really needs to get Mr. Sneezy-face an antihistamine or something."

"Awesome!" came a voice from behind her. "Great job, Bolt! Heroism just runs in your blood, doesn’t it," chortled Rhino as he rolled up to the pair of pets. "Hasn't been the same at the house without you around, cat! It's tough to find anybody who swaps wisecracks as well as you do. I'm starting to get out of practice, y’know."

"Yeah, well -- right now I'd swap all the witty banter in the world for a good meal and a comfy bed," joked Mittens. "Penny and her mom must be around here someplace. Let's go find them and then make like Wayne Gretzky and get the puck outta here."

The two women had heard Bolt’s frantic barking and arrived on the run. Penny scooped the cat up into her arms as the happy entourage headed for the car.

8.

Back at home, Mittens lay on an easy chair in the study as the Intermezzo movement of Brahms’s Third Symphony poured lushly through the CD speakers. "Ahhhh! Much better. This is the way it should be heard. No bustling shoppers. No crying babies. And absolutely, positively no underlying Latin beat."

The cat’s state of reverie was unexpectedly interrupted when Penny entered the room and shut the music off. "Come here, my little sphinx," she said while picking the cat up. "You can continue on with your symphony later. Just want to talk with you, okay? It's important."

"Like I have a choice," Mittens grumbled. "Oh well, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can get to that wonderful last movement."

The girl sat on the sofa, cradling the cat in her arms. "Look -- I don't know if you can understand what I'm saying or not, but I'll try my best." She paused, biting her lower lip reflectively. "I just -- I just want to apologize for leaving you at the mall last week. Mom and I thought you were still in the car, squirrelled away under the front seat asleep. Sure -- I've noticed you do hide out and snooze a good bit, so I guess it's an understandable mistake. Still, it must have been really hard on you, being alone like that and fending for yourself. And for that, I'm really, really sorry."

"Eh," Mittens thought. "I've done it before, and I guess I can do it again if I really have to. Though if I’m lucky, maybe there won't be a next time. Didn't make me feel very wanted, that's for sure."

Penny warmly stroked the cat’s head and ears, trying to think how best to put things. "Dr. Burkitt said it's pretty clear somebody owned you at one time. Lifelong alley cats don't get declawed, do they? But given how scruffy you were, it seems likely you were an abandoned stray before we took you in. Must have been tough on you to be left behind back then, I'll bet." She paused. "I guess it's hard to adjust to a new family, especially when you’re a cat. We're trying, though. We're really trying to make you feel comfortable here." Penny turned Mittens so that they faced each other directly. "Don’t fret, my little worry wart -- we do love you. Every bit as much as Bolt, and that's no lie."

The girl got up and carried the kitty into her room, placing her so she could see the large computer screen on the desk. "Mittens, I've been doing a little online sleuthing. What happened to Bolt when he disappeared, and where he met you and Rhino -- well, that's been a real mystery and I've always wondered about it. But then, while I was searching online for something else, I stumbled onto this Facebook photo."

It was Bolt, no doubt about it, with a blue leash attached to his collar, standing on his hind legs while barking and doing his best to look cute. The caption below simply said "Awwwww!" and a short following blurb said they had tossed food to the dog because he was so irresistible.

"So," said Penny. "I decided to look in earnest to see if there was anything else."

Indeed there was, as the next picture clearly showed. "Best as I can tell, this was taken in Madison Square Park in New York City," the girl said. It was a selfie snapped by a teenager and posted to his Facebook site. Above the words "Look, it's two doggy butts!" was the face of a 13-year-old boy sticking his tongue out on the left side of the shot and the rump of a white dog on the right. It appeared the pooch had his head caught in a fence, and the same blue leash trailed behind him.

"See?" she said proudly. "See that? It's gotta be Bolt again. And look here -- there's a bunch of packing peanuts caught in his tail and stuck to his heinie. I'm betting he somehow got shipped all the way to New York in a box full of Styrofoam pellets. How that happened and why he’s trapped in a fence? Well, you got me -- but pictures don't lie, do they?"

Mittens absent-mindedly licked a paw. "Yeah, I remember Bolt telling me about that," she thought. "Give the girl a Nancy Drew badge -- she's almost cracked the caper."

"That's just the beginning, too," Penny said. She clicked a few more times until she found a picture of Bolt and Mittens at what looked like the same trailer park where the shepherd had been begging for scraps. Here, the dog was awkwardly hunched over, a grimace on his face and his tail in the air, obviously going to the bathroom. The blue leash was attached to Bolt’s collar at one end and tied around the cat’s waist at the other. Mittens sat up on her haunches with her back to the pooch, muzzle covered by her paws and eyes crossed in disgust. Below were the words, "Mommy was wrong! Kitty cats do take puppy doggies on walkies to boom-boom land!"

"This happened somewhere in Ohio, looks like. Notice the little road sign, way in the background? That's the state's outline around the route number."

"Wow," the cat thought. "Some people will take pictures of anything, won't they? Sheesh!"

There were other photos of Bolt, Mittens, and Rhino as well: walking along a country road in Iowa at dusk, crossing a river bridge in Missouri, ambling through a snowy field in the Colorado Rockies, hitching a ride in a kayak strapped to a car’s top in Utah, scrounging for food in dumpsters in Las Vegas. The odd little trio had clearly attracted a lot of attention along the way.

"Here's the earliest picture of you I can find," said Penny to the cat. The little shepherd held Mittens by the scruff of the neck over a bridge railing that crossed a Manhattan parkway. "This is really something right here. It looks to me like Bolt rescued you from falling. He must have really cared a lot about you to do that."

The cat twisted her mouth into a sardonic grin. "Yeah, saving me -- that's what he was doing, all right… " she thought. In fact, the angry dog had been trying to extort information from Mittens by dangling her over the railing. "Ugh -- I was one big yawn away from being roadkill. Oh well, I guess she can't get everything figured out correctly, eh?"

Penny affectionately petted the cat’s back. "I don't know the full extent of your connection, but it's really clear that you mattered a lot to my sweet Bolty. As far as I'm concerned, anybody who means that much to him means equally as much to me. I have a feeling you guys were all looking out for each other on what must have been a tough cross-country journey back to Los Angeles. Back to me. There's no way I'm gonna do anything other than welcome you and Rhino with open arms. If I have anything to say about it, you’ll never need another home besides this one. I hope you believe me, ‘cause I really mean it. I do."

9.

It was a couple nights later, and everyone was asleep except Mittens, who was still trying to turn her internal clock back to a daylight schedule. A bout of insomnia had sent the cat into the den, where she was listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s magnum opus "Bridge over Troubled Water." The title track from this fine album is a lush, gospel-flavored tune set to a full-throated arrangement. The singer warmly promises his troubled friend that he’ll always be there any time the need arises, no matter what -- that they will never have to feel alone again.

Mittens shut the CD player off as the last triumphant, yet reassuring chord of the song sounded and burst into tears. "Why am I crying?" she thought through the sobs. "Everything’s okay now. The nightmare is over. I’m home, I’m safe, and I’m happy." She crawled up into the corner easy chair, curled herself up in thought, and let out a sigh through the lingering sniffles.

"I guess I'm just relieved, that's all. I can't believe things may have finally turned around for me. Everything’s been so difficult before this -- a cold and impersonal shelter, a terrible first owner who robbed me of my dignity and claws, a hard life on the street, a cross-country jaunt with a crazy mutt and crazier hamster, a tough several days at the mall. Now everything feels changed. So different. It’s like I’m reborn into a really special place, the kind of place I’ve hoped for and deserve. With friends and owners who really love me and care about my well-being. Maybe -- maybe like the song says, my time to shine really has come at last."

The cat fell into a deep, satisfying sleep, experiencing dreams that were calm, reassuring, and peaceful. For the first time in her life, she truly believed everything would be all right.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the Brahms "elevator music" example comes from real life. Heard it many years ago at a restaurant, and was just as shocked to experience it as Mittens is here.


End file.
